


And Death Your Last Reward

by Adoradork



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Death, Gen, Grief, Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 04:43:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7208213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adoradork/pseuds/Adoradork
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All good things must come to an end, but can April bear it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Michelangelo

To everyone's surprise, Mikey is the first to go. In the evening he's cracking jokes, making them all laugh, bright and alive as ever. In the morning he's quiet and still and shrunken on the bed, as if most of his size came from his personality.

They bury him in the woods, in a little clearing hidden away from the world. His brothers shed no tears as they shovel dirt over his sheet-wrapped body but that's okay because she has enough tears for all of them and doesn't know if she'll ever be able to stop.

But of course she does, because three of them are still alive and they need her and Casey as much as they need each other.


	2. Donatello

Donnie slips one day while working with a powersaw. He staggers across the yard and makes into the house, but bleeds out on the living room floor before they can do anything sensible to save him, before she can say all the things she wants to say to him.

His grave beside Mikey's is a promise of future grief.


	3. Leonardo

It isn't until April swears that she won't let Raphael suffer, that she will do what has to be done, that Leo finally gives in to the pain and faces his end. She places his katana on his chest. Casey kneels beside the bed, waiting. Raphael wanders in and out, tries to talk to his brother, wanders off again.

Leo meets death with eyes open wide as dawn breaks across the sky.


	4. Raphael

The weeks go by. Raphael wanders in his own mind. Sometimes he asks for his brothers and April takes him down to the little collection of graves in the woods. He stares at them as if they are the graves of strangers.

Casey catches her crying in the kitchen over the broken bowl, porridge spilled across the floor. He wraps her in strong arms. Raph's getting thinner, more lost, less able to cope with his wandering mind, his absent brothers. Is it time? Neither of them are ready.

Raphael makes the decision for them. April doesn't know what it is that pulls her out of sleep before dawn has even coloured the sky, but she knows something is wrong. There's a line across the grass where the dew has been disturbed by heavy feet.

She finds him lying between two trees. The leaves have been kicked up around him. Great gouges have been torn into the dirt as he fought out the last moments of his life. He didn't want them to see him die. Not like this. There's enough animal left in him that he knew.

April would gladly have held him as he died. She lies down beside him and cradles his chest, aware as she does that something wonderful has gone out of the universe, something unique and amazing that will never come again.


End file.
